


Break/Open

by dornfelder



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: FIx It, First Person, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), credit scene compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-06 22:27:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6772753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dornfelder/pseuds/dornfelder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story featuring two graveyards, one submarine, several capitals around the world, and a French castle. Not necessarily in that order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Break/Open

**Author's Note:**

> Heartfelt thanks to Vaysh for betareading and encouragement, and to Trobador for translation of the Russian phrases used in this fic. All remaining mistakes are mine.

**__**

_**Brittany, France, October 15th** _

The Winter Soldier's face looms above me, blank and terrifying, devoid of any emotion except some steely kind of resolve.

"Bucky," I say, _plead_ , voice gone hoarse from his bruising grip around my throat. "It's me. Bucky, you know me. You do."

Even with only one arm, made of flesh and bones, he's strong, pinning me down, and one hand is enough to strangle me and cut off my air. I could break his grip and throw him off, but it isn't what I'm here for and I don't want to hurt him. All I can do is lie there, gasp for air, and plead with him, try to reach him somehow. "Bucky. Please," I whisper. There's nothing in his eyes, no recognition at all.

From the corner of my eyes, I can see Natasha moving, silently, readying herself to intervene. I've failed once more, failed them all, failed him. I close my eyes. "Buck," I whisper, and then the Russian words roll of her tongue, easy as pie, and he goes still and collapses on top of me.

 

**__**

_**Freedomtown, Wakanda, September 26th** _

"Are you sure?" I ask one final time and when he nods, I take a step back, struggling to control my expression. There's nothing I can do to change his mind. I can't keep him safe – not from the horror lurking in his mind, not from the people hunting him for the things Hydra has done. I couldn't save him back then and I can't do it now. I have no idea how to break this kind of conditioning, no idea how it even works, how you get a human being to act like a robot in blind, horrifying obedience. There is nothing I can do to help him regain control, so all that is left is to stand there, watching with my hands in my pockets as the glass slides shut to lock him inside. I watch his face go blank, a forced calmness as he tries to relax into it, then an artificial one as his face goes slack in cryosleep.

I was frozen just this once. The most terrifying thing I ever felt – the ice closing in, the darkness. I can't imagine what it would be like to feel that again and again, the only constant in a life of ever-changing orders and different missions. Stasis, wake-up call, memory wipe. 

A part of me wants to throw up when it is done, when they pull the stasis unit back into the corner of the room, attaching it to various monitors and generators. A woman's kind, understanding eyes on me. I avoid her gaze and count to ten in my mind, taking deep breaths. 

I can't keep him safe, so I have to trust T'Challa to do it for me. As I turn around and walk away, my hands clench into fists. He wanted it this way, knowing I couldn't help him. He won't even know that I'm gone – I'm not abandoning him, I'll be back, once I find someone who can help him. He's not going to be in there forever. 

I can't help Bucky Barnes right now, but there are other people that I _can_ help, people who stood up for me and fought for me – _just as he did,_ a voice inside me points out – and I may not know just yet how to find them, or how to free them, but I am going to figure it out. 

 

**__**

_**Washington, D.C., USA, October 3rd** _

The old woman sits on the wooden bench, legs closed but not crossed. Her woolen skirt is long enough to cover her knees, revealing DVT stockings underneath. She is wearing flat shoes and a cream-colored blouse under her cardigan. Coming closer, I recognize glasses in a mother-of-pearl frame that distract from her eyes and the thinning, gray hair pulled into a bun. Amidst the vast expanse of the cemetery with its long lines of tombstones, she looks tired and worn-out; a tiny figure clutching her handbag.

"Hi," I say softly and sit down next to her. 

She coughs, an old-woman cough, adjusts her glasses and mutters under her breath, "Took you long enough. I thought I'd have to do it on my own."

"I had to take care of some things first," by which I mean Bucky. 

She mutters, "I bet," then gets to her feet, appropriately slowly, and reaches for her cane. I could rise and offer her my arm, _allow me, ma'am_. Instead I keep sitting on the bench until she is almost out of sight, then get up to take a detour and pay a visit to Col. Nicholas J. Fury, who trod "the path of the righteous man", before I follow her. 

She leads me to an apartment building two blocks away. Three miraculously unlocked doors and six floors later, we enter an empty apartment, freshly renovated and smelling of paint. There are still tools stored in the living room, paintbrushes and empty buckets, a pasting table. A couple of empty beer bottles in a garbage bag, an old-fashioned transistor radio connected to a wall socket that misses its plastic cover.

"I was looking for you," I say. "I even tried the Smithsonian." 

Natasha – and it's Natasha now, taking off her wig and freeing her face from a latex mask – shakes her head and rolls her eyes. "You have to start thinking like a spy, Rogers." 

I don't tell her that I went to Brooklyn fist, trying my old neighborhood, and then to my old Washington place before I thought of the Smithsonian. It took me three days to think of the cemetery. 

"So," she says. "Now that you're here, do you have any kind of plan?"

"I like the old-fashioned way," I say. 

"Predictable." 

"You know me."

"I do," she says. "Are you going to tell me where Barnes is?"

"Safe," I say, willing it, needing it to be true.

"We'll have to talk about it," she says. "Later."

I shake my head but she ignores me and pulls a cellphone out of her grey-green handbag. "Use this to contact me," she says. "I'll have to make some calls, get us a bit of equipment. If all goes well, we can leave tomorrow." 

"Do you know where they are?"

She rolls her eyes at me. "I've known since the day the government started building the damn thing."

"You didn't tell me." 

She doesn't dignify that with an answer, instead she pulls a tablet out of her handbag. "Nick can't help us – not officially – but he'll have a submarine waiting for us."

"Did you just say _submarine_?" 

"How else do you expect us to reach a _submerged_ prison? They won't surface for us because you ask nicely."

"I could jump from a jet," I suggest. "I'm good at diving."

"We have a better chance at getting away with a submarine, I think."

"Are you sure about that?" 

"Let's see how this works, shall we?" She pulls up construction plans of what looks like a huge, round helicarrier but turns out to be a raft. A raft _prison_. "There's this filtration plant at the bottom. I think we'll be able to get through the double door system they use for maintenance …"

Plans made – I nod and hum thoughtfully during her explanation - she makes a couple of different calls while I look out the window, trying to imagine myself back in Wakanda, in T'Challa's refuge. I think of Bucky in his cryosleep. Does he dream in stasis? 

"You're far away in your mind," Nat says, coming to stand beside me. "You know, I always wondered what it would take to make you go rogue. You came close with Project Insight. After that, I knew it was only a matter of time, I just wasn't sure what was going to be the final straw." 

"Now you know," I say. 

"Yeah," she says. "Of course it would be him."

I look at her. The late afternoon light casts shadows on her face. While I didn't hear an accusation in her voice, that doesn't mean it wasn't there. "He's part of who I am. I'm not good at letting go of things. People." 

"Oh, I know that, Rogers."

"I would do the same for you," I say. It's true. There aren't many people that I would risk my life for without a second thought, unconditionally and against all reason. Somehow – stealthily as is her forte – she's become one of them. 

"Sweet talker," she says, but she's smiling. "Okay. So. Steve, I've got to ask, are you sure you want to do it this way? We could try the official route, talk to people – talk to Stark. They're not going to want to keep them imprisoned. They need us. The accords are still on the table."

"No," I say. Nothing has changed. After SHIELD, after Hydra, I am not going to sign away my right to choose. I did it with SHIELD because Fury seemed to be a good man – he is, but I'm no longer that man who came out of the ice, looking for guidance.

She sighs. "Of course not. Straight forward approach it is. But seeing as it's only going to be us, do you think you'll manage? After all, you're lacking certain important parts, equipment-wise."

I raise my eyebrow. "Really, Natasha?"

Her smile is quick and amused. "Don't be ashamed of your performance issues -" 

"I think I'll manage," I say dryly. The truth is, the shield has been a part of me for so long that I miss it like a limb. I miss other things more, however; other people: the team that Natasha and I built together, the substitute family they've become. Wanda, the younger sister I want to protect, Sam, the older brother I never had. Even Vision, who is so different from us, vulnerable in his own, special way. 

Most of all, I miss Bucky.

It doesn't make sense. In the years after they pulled me out of the ice, I learned to live without him. I've been living without him _for years_. It doesn't make sense to miss him that much, just because I had him back for a couple of days. Yet it's undeniably true. Not that it changes anything; whether I miss him or not, he's out of my reach. 

He's safe, and that's all that matters. 

Natasha turns around and goes back to the unfurnished kitchen to make yet another phone call. Her scent lingers, lilac and lily of the valley filling my nose. The perfume suits the old woman she pretended to be, but it doesn't suit her. Natasha prefers warm, spicy fragrances. I hear her quiet voice, asking questions. On the street I can see a bunch of high school kids walking on the sidewalk, almost knocking down another old lady in their careless haste. 

"Bye," I hear Natasha say. She's coming back to stand in the doorway. "You could call Sharon. She'd help you if you asked her."

Sharon. With a pang of guilt I realize that I've almost forgotten about her, rarely thought of her at all since Berlin. "I already owe her too much," I say. Natasha fiddles with her phone, watching me from the corner of her eyes. Waiting, probably, for me to become flustered. I don't even know how I feel about Sharon and the kiss we shared – it seemed like a lifetime ago, and now the only reaction I feel is one of mild embarrassment. It was a private moment, or it should have been, so what was I thinking, kissing her in public like that? At the time, it felt like something I had to do. "She's not one of us," I say. It sounds petty even in my own ears and I hasten to clarify. "Not an Avenger, I mean." 

"She doesn't want to be an Avenger, she wants to be your girlfriend," Natasha says

"I don't think I have time for that." On the street, a young man with dark hair and an energetic stride disregards the traffic lights, causing a taxi driver to brake hard and honk the horn. My eyes follow him until he is out of sight. "We might be on the run for a while."

"She told me you kissed her," she says. "Was that before or after you'd realized she was Peggy's niece?"

I turn my head to stare at her shocked by the implication, indignant. I intend to fire back at her, open my mouth; she cocks her head expectantly. The outrage leaves me in a rush and I deflate before her knowing gaze. "You know, Romanov," I mutter and see her smile at that, "you can be a real pain in the ass sometimes."

She laughs and pats my arm, then reaches into her bag to pull out her wig. "Likewise."

I wait for her to finish reassemble Mrs. Miller, or whoever the old woman is meant to be. "We need a safe house," I say when she's done and turning to leave. "A place for all of us, plus Laura and the kids. Scott, if he wants to, of course. A place where Tony won't find us."

"It would be better to split up," Natasha says. "Easier to go unnoticed."

"I want us to have a base," I say. "At least for the next couple of weeks." I don't want to think of the future, what will become of us. Wanda, Clint's family. Me. 

She nods with a slight frown. "I know a place."

 

**__**

_**The North Atlantic, October 5th** _

"What do you say," I say, approaching Sam's cell. "You wanna get out of here?"

He snorts. "Don't do me any favors, man. You took your sweet time."

"Sorry. Had to take care of a few things first. You okay?"

"I'll be fine as soon as we get _out_. Got to tell you, the room service sucks."

"Amen to that," Clint calls out from two cells over. "Where's Nat?"

"Control room," I say, hearing Natasha's voice in my ear, telling me to hurry, we've got two minutes, and the gear is stored in a vault, section 3F. "Take a step back," I warn Sam, and take aim with the massive hammer Nat made me bring. With the power cut, it's easy for me to shatter the reinforced steel bars. Four destroyed cell doors later, we head for the vault, then back to the filtration plant. 

"Cap, aren't you missing something?" Clint asks. "You look – naked. Where's your shield?"

"Never mind," I say. "Come on, we're running late –"

~~~~~

"A _submarine_ , 'Tasha? Seriously?"

"Come on, Barton, beggars can't be choosers," Scott says brightly. "We've got an airlock, it's not like we have to swim." He keeps walking toward the sub. 

"Hurry," Wanda says, looking ghostly pale. She's ahead of us at the end of the corridor.

"We've got to wait for Nat," Sam says. 

"On my way!" her voice yells in my ear. I can hear her moving, running toward us. Any second, the security programming will come back online. I can hear the faint hum of a generator, powering. 

I point toward the airlock. "All of you, go, _now_." They obey, climbing through the airlock toward the sub's bulkhead door. "Nat, get out!" 

"Almost there," she gasps. I count down the seconds. _Ten. Nine. Eight._ She skids around the corner, almost falling, she manages to catch herself. A brutal finish. _Four,_ and she's inside the airlock and we make a run for bulkhead door. _One,_ and we're through. I slam it shut and turn the wheel. Next to me, Natasha presses a button on a wall panel to sever the tube. Clint is already inside the control room. Seconds later, the engine comes to live with a hum and off we go, leaving the raft behind us. 

"We need to get away before they regain control of the weapon systems." Out of breath, I press my forehead against the bulkhead door. We've almost made it, now there's nothing we can do but pray, and wait as we slide through the endless darkness of the deep sea in our beautiful, sleek vessel. 

Minutes later, Natasha looks up from her controls. "We should be out of reach. We'll stay on this course for a while, it will look like we're heading back to the US. In an hour, we'll change directions. We'll go into stealth mode – not quite as fast, but safer."

"Where are we going?" Clint asks.

"France," Natasha says. 

 

**__**

_**Brittany, France, October 7th** _

We surface off the Breton coast, then launch a hovercraft, following Nat's directions. In the early hours of morning, just before dawn, we land on a secluded beach. Quietly, invisible to anyone else, we make our way inland through forest and fields full of heather to our safe house, taking turns to carry the hovercraft and scout. After three or four miles, we reach a grove of beech and oak trees, then an old-fashioned iron fence. We follow it to a graveled, private driveway and walk through an iron gate that isn't locked, only closed. Sheltered by trees and hedges of an overgrown park, we finally reach the forecourt of a large nineteenth century stone _château_. It's isolated but well-maintained, surrounded by meadows with various outbuildings adjacent to the manor house. In the early morning light, it looks peaceful, pastoral.

"Who lives here?" I ask, just as Sam says, "Tell me, who owns this place?" We exchange a glance.

"I do," Natasha says, an offhand statement that is followed by stunned silence.

I look at Natasha with one eyebrow raised.

"What?" Natasha says. "Did you think I spent all my money on shoes and gadgets? SHIELD paid very well. I had to do _something_ with the money."

"Did you know of this?" I ask Clint as we approach the main building. Gravel crunches under our feet. He shakes his head and shrugs. I exchange another glance with Sam. 

"I could use a holiday," Sam says lightly. "Do some gardening, brush up on my French –"

"Since when do you speak French?" Wanda asks. 

We follow Natasha through a granite archway into a cobblestone-plastered courtyard. She pulls a set of keys out of her pockets. 

"Black Widow, home owner," Sam says. "Who'd have guessed?"

"Not me," Scott says. 

Wanda looks around with wide, keen eyes. "It's very nice."

~~~~~

"Nice" isn't what comes to my mind as Natasha leads us into an entrance hall, then a long hallway. The sound of our footsteps on a marble floor echoes from high ceilings and walls. I've seen quite a bit of Europe during the war, places very similar to this one, but my own quarters were usually more modest, and it is something different entirely than the Avengers' compound. Living room with wide French doors leading on a terrace. Dining room, parlor, a study with a large fireplace. A huge kitchen with a table seating six. Six bedrooms on the second floor, including the master bedroom, each with its own en-suite bathroom. Four more bedrooms on the third floor, smaller, with a bathroom on each side of the corridor. Half of the third floor has been turned into a ballroom, complete with draperies, ballet bars, and a grand piano. The house is clean, modern, tasteful. Equipped with all amenities.

"You don't spend a lot of time here, do you?" Scott asks Natasha. 

"Not really," she says. 

I'm tempted to ask her why – why this house, why here? – but I don't think she'll talk about it, not while the whole team is listening. 

The tour goes on. The outbuildings are full of pleasant surprises. Stables turned into a gym, including a small pool, whirlpool, and a steam bath. The former barn contains technical equipment, carefully stored behind steel doors. Enough heavy weaponry to withstand a siege – explosives included. Scott and Sam excitedly start digging through an assortment of handguns and long-range rifles while Barton checks out a locker full of arrows, tranquilizer darts and crossbow bolts. I tilt my head at a box of SHIELD-made armor vests 

Natasha shrugs, completely unrepentant. "Don't be jealous. You know, just because _I_ take care of my equipment …"

"Oh, shut up, Romanov."

~~~~~

"So," Sam says after breakfast, when we're all stuffed full of oatmeal, rolls, bacon, eggs and fruit. There were plenty of groceries in the fridge. Natasha must have a housekeeper, though I haven't seen any sign of another person living here. "What happened in Siberia? Care to finally clue us in?"

Just like the others, Sam has been remarkable patient. During our long underwater journey, neither of them asked. Natasha and I told them only the basics: Tony survived, Bucky survived, and the other Winter Soldiers died. I haven't said a word about Tony's parents; not even Natasha knows. Or maybe she does, I'm not sure. I don't think she's seen Tony or talked to him since he came back from Russia.

I take a deep breath, trying to overcome my own reluctance to reveal all the important details. They need to know, they deserve to know. They put their lives on the line – for us, I should say, or to save the world, except I know that they didn't really do it for that. They did it for me. 

When I mention the video, the room goes completely silent. I close my eyes, remembering it in vivid detail: the Winter Soldier's expressionless face and vacant stare, which I've already seen in person – in Washington and in Germany. I make myself tell them the rest of it too, the fight, our escape. I don't mention T'Challa. 

"So that's why you don't have your shield," Wanda says. "Clint was right, you look weird without it."

"You should have taken it," Clint says. "They gave it to you to fight Nazis and Hydra during the war. It was Hydra who killed Howard and Maria, not Barnes. Tony had no right –"

"Come on, cut that guy some slack," Scott says. As we all look at him, he shrugs. "I'm not saying what he did was right, but watching that video? That must have been hell."

Clint snorts. "That's no excuse." 

"Fascinating as all of that is," Natasha says, "but Tony is not the issue right now." She gives them a moment to let that sink in. "We need to talk about Barnes."

"Yeah," Sam says. "Where did you take him? And who else knows about the trigger sequence?"

"Zemo had a book," I says. "I took it."

Natasha's eyes narrow. "What did you do with it?" 

"Hid it," I say. I am not going to say where. 

"Good," she says. "I was afraid you would do something stupid and destroy it. What else is in this book?"

"It's like a manual," I say. I don't know a lot of Russian, just barely enough to realize that the book is full of dos and don'ts, codes, procedures to be followed. Care and feeding – or rather, maintenance – of the Winter Soldier. All of a sudden, I regret eating that last bowl of oatmeal. My stomach feels too full.

"Well. That could be helpful," she says. "Mind letting me have a look at it?"

"What for?"

She looks at me like I've lost my mind. "To break the conditioning. You _do_ want to break the conditioning and get your friend back, don't you?"

"Of course," I say. "But the book isn't the key to that, believe me. It's – it's horrible." I take a deep breath to steady myself. "It's as if – as if you buy a new car that comes with instructions, telling you – telling you what kind of fuel you need to keep it running, how the air conditioning works. Where the different lights are, what all the little buttons do, how you change the motor oil and the tires." My voice sounds funny. I clear my throat. "But it doesn't – it doesn't tell you that the car isn't actually a car. It doesn't tell you how to make it _stop_ being a car." 

"Fuck," Sam says, and puts a hand on my shoulder. "Fucking assholes."

I force the words out. "They didn't think of him as human," I say. "So they wouldn't include anything in this book that you could use to help him _be_ human." My cheeks are wet, and I don't know how that happened. I wipe my face with a hand. "I don't know what to do. There's no one I know with any expertise on breaking this kind of mind control." I rise to my feet. "I'll go for a walk." It's either that, or starting to break things, and I don't think Natasha would thank me for that.

"Don't frighten any tourists," Natasha advises me, but I only hear her voice through a veil as a far-away sound.

~~~~~

When I come back, the house is silent. We've only been here for a couple of hours, but already there is evidence of our presence. Pillows out of order in the living room, the kitchen table full of crumbs, a half-empty pot of coffee on the wooden countertop. Natasha is sitting on the window-sill, cradling a mug.

"Where is everyone else?" I ask. 

"In bed," she says. "Most people need sleep, you know."

"You have a beautiful house," I say. 

She shrugs. "I always liked Brittany."

"If you'd have made me guess, I would have said, Côte d'Azur. Provence." 

"I don't like mountains", she says absent-mindedly, looking out at the park-like garden. The leaves are already turning. "I've lived here, you know? Not for long, I mean. It was one of my first missions for the Red Room. A French engineer. I was meant to seduce him and persuade him to take the job offer of a top-secret Russian weapons manufacturer. He brought me here for an extended holiday."

"Oh," I say carefully.

"He was very nice, actually." A rueful smile, then a coquettish tilt of her head. "And I was very nice to him. After a month, he took their offer, sold the house and moved to Nizhny Novgorod. The Red Room loved that."

"What happened to him?"

"He died a couple of years ago. A stroke. It might have been an assassination, or just his age. He was fifty-seven when I met him."

I don't ask her how old she was. I don't think I want to know. "Why did you buy his house?"

"Because I liked it," she says. "Nothing more complicated than that."

"Did anyone know of this?" 

"Only one person."

"Fury?"

"No," she says. "Well, maybe. Possibly. But I never told him." 

She looks far away in thought, and just a little vulnerable. I don't like seeing her this way, but it's nice that she doesn't feel she has to hide it from me. We've come a long way, Nat and I. The trust between us is earned – tested, proved, real. So I dare take an educated guess. "Bruce?"

She turns her head to look at me, catches my eyes, then nods.

"You know, I never quite understood what it was you were seeing in him," I say. 

"Kindness," she says after a moment. Her lips curl in a wry smile. "A woman can dream, sometimes."

"Dream. Of Banner." 

"He's different," she says and doesn't look away. Lets me see her, her pain, her sadness. "Sometimes I want to be different too. But it wouldn't have worked out in the long run. I can't help being me, and Bruce doesn't actually like the real me that much."

"He seemed to like you just fine."

"Because I _wanted_ him to like me," she says. "I spent a year getting the Hulk to imprint on me, and that meant working closely with Bruce. And I _did_ like him, so sue me." She turns her head away and takes another sip of coffee. "Not that it matters now."

"Do you know where he is?" I never asked her when we were working at the compound. I would have been too tempting to bring him back whenever it felt like we needed additional firepower. 

She puts her cup down and slides from the window-sill with a sphinxlike smile. " _I_ wouldn't simply misplace a thirty megaton nuke."

"Oh, come on."

"Let me show you your room," she says. 

She's given me the bedroom next to Sam's. I can hear him snore as we pass his door. "Wanda's down the hall, Scott across the floor. Clint's upstairs, he wanted a better view." She follows me inside and closes the door as I sit down on the bed and start pulling off my boots, then closes the door. I look up at her. 

"We need to talk about Barnes," she says. "You know, I don't think you've really thought this through."

That brings me up short. "I have," I say, a protest. "Bucky agreed to it. He wanted it. I wouldn't have made him -"

Her eyes narrow. "Don't tell me that you couldn't have persuaded him to stay awake."

"It's safer for him. He lost his arm; he can't defend himself." She nods, seemingly conceding the point, but I can see she's far from convinced. "It's too dangerous for him out there. And as long as we can't break the conditioning –" 

"Oh," she says, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, "but that's where you're wrong. You already have everything you need."

"And what would that be?" I ask, too tired and irritated to tone down my sarcasm.

"You, Steve," she says with a crooked smile. "All you need to stop him is _you._ "

"I couldn't stop him in Berlin," I object. The feeling of hollowness inside me grows as I remember. "He didn't listen. He didn't stop."

"Did you try, though?" she asks. "Did you really try?" 

"There wasn't time –"

"Because on that helicarrier," she continues, as if I hadn't said anything at all, "from what you've told me, all it took to overcome his programming was you, reminding him who he was. You were getting through to him. You're the key, Steve."

I open my mouth, then close it. I feel a vague sense of dread and my palms start sweating. 

"Hydra wasn't strong enough to purge you from his mind," she continue. "Something inside of him still recognized you after all these years, after everything they'd done to him. Hydra kept the Winter Soldier in prime condition – memory wipes, stasis, injections. And yet you broke through all of that and managed to pull out Bucky Barnes from under layers and layers of conditioning and training."

I wipe my hands at my pants. 

"And he's been Bucky Barnes ever since. He's been away from them for two years, living on his own, learning how to be human again. It will be a lot easier for him to fight the conditioning _now_ then it was back then. Every time he manages to shake it off, it will become easier. So we help him do it until he learns to do it on his own, hold on to his human side."

"You changed your mind," I say. "You thought he was dangerous."

"Before they found him in Bucharest, neither of us knew where he was or what he was doing. He could still have been working for Hydra. Now that I've seen him, I know what we're dealing with. He is dangerous, yes, but we've got the means to control him. After Zemo used the trigger sequence in Berlin – what did it take for him to shake it off?" 

"A crash with a helicopter? Almost drowning. Unconsciousness?"

"But when he came to, he remembered everything. He was still Barnes."

As I nod, she tilts her head to the side, as if to say, _see_? 

"Are you sure?" I ask, torn between hopefulness and skepticism. It can't be that easy, can it? 

"We can help him," she says firmly. "Generally speaking, he must be fairly resistant to mind control. It took Hydra _years_ to break him; it's in the files, you've read them. Without the memory wipes, they wouldn't have succeeded at all. I'm not saying it will be easy, or pleasant. Pretty sure it won't be pleasant! We'll have to use the trigger sequence on him, then make him break out of it. You'll probably have to _pull_ him out, the same way as on the helicarrier, and not just once. Over and over again, until his brain learns to do it on its own."

"It's not going to work," I tell her. "Back on the helicarrier, I was – back then, I was –" _suicidal_ is the word Sam used, which isn't far from the truth. I didn't have anything to lose, back then. "I don't think I can do that again." 

She gives me a long, thoughtful look. "Steve. You reached out to him, you broke through the programming by letting him see what he meant to you. You called him, and he heard you and dug himself out from under the whole ruin and rubble Hydra made of his mind. And if you could do it once, I'm pretty sure you can do it again." 

My throat is dry. "It's too dangerous. If he loses control, he's going to fight us, he's going to _kill_ us -"

"Without his metal arm, he's manageable," he tells me. "Manageable, not harmless, but we have you, and Sam, and Clint, and Wanda, and me –"

"Neither of you can take him in close combat," I says. "Neither of you can do more than keep him in check. Your were there in Berlin, after Zemo had used the code on him. The way he fights ..."

"That's because Zemo gave him a set of specific orders. If one of us controls him, we can give him different ones. We can tell him to fight but not to kill us. He'll do exactly as he's told."

My mind is reeling. She looks at me, the nods. "You think about it. Sleep it over. But I wouldn't say this if I didn't think we have a chance."

 _Sleep it over._ As if I'd be able to fall asleep after this.

~~~~~

Sam almost drops his beer bottle. "Barnes is _where?_ Last time I checked, Cat Guy was doing his best to kill him!"

"Yeah, but he came around. I trust him."

"You trust too easily, Steve," Natasha says. 

" _Wakanda_? Seriously? How are we going to get there?" 

"By plane, obviously," I say.

"What, do you want to get on a regular flight?" Sam asks. "We're fugitives. They call us _terrorists_  –"

"We just need to borrow a plane," I say. "There must be private airports in Brittany –"

"There are," Natasha says. "Specifically, there's Lorient. You didn't think I would get us somewhere with no means to get away?"

"Let me guess. It just so happens that you have a good friend working there," I say. "Someone trustworthy, someone who owes you a favor –"

"If you knew, why did you even ask?" 

I ignore her. "I'll have to go alone," I say. "They're a little particular about allowing foreigners in the country."

"Nah, I'll go with you," Clint says. "I can stay in the plane if I have to. "

"We also need the book," Natasha reminds me.

"Yes," I admit with a sigh. "You'll have to get it for me while I'm away." 

"Where is it?" 

Moments pass as I weigh my option and they wait. "All right," I say. "You need to go to Highgate Cemetery." 

 

**__**

_**London, England, September 28th** _

Peggy's grave is full of flowers. Roses, red as her lips used to be. In the church, carrying her casket, I thought that maybe I could live with her loss, that I was finally able to let her go, but as I carefully dig a hole right next to her grave stone, I feel the pain more sharply than ever.

"You kept all my secrets," I whisper, "as well as my heart. I trust you to keep this safe, too, my dear friend." When the hole is big enough, I carefully push the locked box inside, right under the stone. I pull my hand back, then proceed to carefully fill the hole back up, taking care to cover my tracks and leave the grave looking undisturbed. 

 

**__**

_**Brittany, France, October 8th** _

"So, Nat and Wanda go to London. Steve and Clint fly to Wakanda. What am I going to do in the meantime?" Sam asks.

"Do some gardening. Brush up on your French," Scott suggests, deadpan.

"Funny," Sam says. 

"Someone could mow the lawn," Natasha says. "Also, pest control. I've noticed an increase of _Formicidae_ crawling around."

"Funny," Scott says. 

"Just don't frighten the tourists," I say. 

"Aww, Cap, you're a spoil-sport."

"Funny," I say. 

 

**__**

_**Freedomtown, Wakanda, October 10th** _

"Are you sure about this?" T'Calla asks me. "Have you found a way to free him of his horrible burden?"

"I hope so," I say. 

"You don't sound so sure."

"Natasha thinks it will work."

He cocks his head to the side. "Ms. Romanov is a smart woman."

"Yes, she is."

"You think she might be wrong?"

"Yes," I say, not wanting to lie to him. "But he should at least know. That there is – that there might be a way."

He puts a hand on my shoulder. "When you left, I knew you would come back. After all you have done for him, I would have been surprised if you hadn't undertaken any effort to find a way."

But have I? It was Natasha who has came up with the idea. If it works out, it will be her accomplishment, not mine. 

"Come on, my friend, I will lead you to him," T'Challa says, and steers me along. We walk through corridors and courtyards full of trees and flowers. "I took the liberty to have our doctors and technicians work on a new prosthesis. One to replace the arm that was lost. I am afraid it is not quite ready yet – in a couple of months, maybe. We can offer him a transitional device for now, but it will be crude compared to the arm he lost." 

"You have done so much already. We are basically strangers to you. Why would you do all this?"

"You already asked me that," he says gently. 

"Your offer now goes above and beyond." 

T'Challa is silent for a moment, moving at my side full of deadly, feline grace. "It was my fault that you two were captured in Bucharest. What happened in Berlin is a consequence of these actions. And I might have killed your friend, if I hadn't learned the truth. Intentions, as well as actions, have consequences – especially seeing that it was no conscious choice on my part to let him live. I owe him a debt."

We have reached the double doors leading into the medical facility where I left Bucky. The doors side apart and we enter the room where a man in a while lab coat is sitting in front of a monitor, working on the controls. In the back of the room, behind a soft, white seethrough curtain, is the stasis unit. 

"We guarded your friend in his sleep," T'Challa says, drawing back the curtain. He exchanges a couple of words in Wakandan with the man at the control panel, who nods and starts to type in several commands. 

"We'll wake him gently," T'Challa says. "He won't feel any pain or cold, just a mild disorientation that should fade in a couple of minutes. Will you stay here with him?" 

As I nod, he smiles at me. "Then I will see you two later." 

He leaves us alone. I step closer to the glass cage. Bucky looks exactly the way he did before, including the graze on his cheeks. Chin covered in stubble, clean black hair pulled back from his face. The longer hair suits him, though it makes him look older. He's handsome, he's always been. 

The unit starts making a couple of beeping noises. Lights start flickering. "Is that normal?" I ask. I hope the man behind the desk speaks English.

"We are replacing the gas," he replies with a thick accent. "Flooding the tank with oxygen and warming him up. He should wake in about five minutes."

I wait, staring. Bucky remains motionless at first, then he takes a first breath. I keep watching as his chest lift and lowers, and match my breaths to his. 

"Almost done," the technician – doctor? – says, and then Bucky stirs. He throws his head from one side to another. The glass slides open. I take a step forward. "Hey, Buck."

He makes a noise, sleepy and dazed. My hands clench in an effort not to reach for him. He finally opens his eyes. They take a moment to focus, then they fix on my face, and he smiles. "Steve." 

I find it hard to breathe. "Hey," I say stupidly. 

His eyes leave my face and scan the room. "How – how long?" His voice is hoarse from disuse. 

"Not long," I say. "Three weeks."

He starts to move, but the straps around his chest, waist and legs hold him in place. I take a step forward. "Let me help." I undo the buckles. My finger brush over warm skin, soft cotton. "There."

"Steve," he says, and it's probably only because I know him as well as I do that I notice the confusion in his voice. "What happened? Why did you wake me?"

"We need to talk," I tell him.

~~~~~

While Bucky is still in the process of waking up, the door opens and a team of doctors and nurses enter the room. They examine him thoroughly. He holds still for all of it, standing or sitting as they tell him to, rigid as a statue whenever they touch him. They talk about fitting a temporary prosthesis, but he shakes his head. He's given something to drink, then something to eat, a bit of fruit and some kind of porridge. He eats without complaint, but as soon as they let him, he sets the bowl aside. I watch him closely through all of it, doing a mental check-up of my own, but he seems fine and, gradually, I relax.

Finally the doctors are satisfied and we're free to go. "Come on, let's get out of here," I say, and he casts me a skeptical glance but follows me out of the room obediently. 

Two floors down, we find a balcony overlooking the rainforest and step out into the hot, tropical air. Bucky takes a deep breath, nostrils flaring. "So. Are you going to tell me why you came and pulled me out of stasis after we both agreed it is safer that way? It's not because you need me for a mission, is it?"

"No!" I say, shocked at the implication. "Jesus, Bucky, no. It's not because of that." 

He grimaces a little. His hand closes around the rail. "Okay. Then what?"

"Natasha thinks she knows how to help you."

"Natasha? You mean the Widow?" 

"Yeah." 

"Are you sure you can trust her? Last time we met, she was fighting on Stark's side."

"And helping us to escape." 

He waits. 

"Yes, I trust her." I speak with absolute confidence and watch him take in my words, weigh them in his mind, then nod. 

"All right," he says. "Tell me."

"You remember when Hydra sent you after us two years ago?"

He glares at me. 

"Stupid question, I guess," I say, and run a hand through my hair. "Then, at the helicarrier, when you tried to stop me, and we fought –"

He looks away from me. "I remember." 

"And then you stopped. Because you recognized me. In that moment, you threw off Hydra's conditioning and regained control." 

"So?" he asks, almost defiantly. 

"Natasha thinks you can do it again. That I can help you … help you remember, and if we do it often enough, the words will stop working on you."

He lets out a breath, shakes his head. "I don't think that's a good idea."

"It's worth a try."

"No," he says. "What if it doesn't work? What if – what if I hurt someone?"

"Even when you turn into the Soldier, you still act on orders. She's going to give you orders that won't allow you to do any harm."

He lets out a mirthless laugh. " _Do any harm,_ " he repeats. "Do you have any idea – any idea at all – how much harm someone like me can do to people who just happen to be in the way?"

"I know," I say, feeling reminded, painfully, of Lagos, of Sokovia. I can only beginn to guess at the number of civilians who died in the war as a direct consequence of our actions. "Believe me, I know. But it's not going to be like that."

"So that's the plan? That's why you came here and pulled me out? So that I can be turned into a killing machine, _again_?" 

"You're not going to kill anyone," I say. "But yes, that's the idea. Until the conditioning stops working. Until you're able to resist."

"Resist," he says. "I tried – Steve, I tried so hard, in Berlin, to resist it. It couldn't –" He interrupts himself, shaking his head with an expression of utter misery. "Do you believe I haven't tried before?"

"Buck," I say, not trusting my voice. "Bucky. I know you tried, you don't have to tell me. But you were alone then. You aren't alone now."

"You don't understand," he says. "After I got away – it took me months to remember. And I was afraid the whole time that they would find me again, put me under again."

"Why didn't you come to me?"

"You'd been working for SHIELD. And SHIELD turned out be Hydra," he says. "So I wasn't sure what you were doing at first. They hadn't told me anything and it took me weeks to get at least the facts straight, _in here_ " – he points at this head, "and then it just seemed you were better off without me." As I open my mouth to protest, he shrugs. "Don't. That's not important. The point is … Steve, I fought so fucking hard to become me again. I can't let anyone do this to me."

I wet my lips. "You're scared," I say. "I get that. You have lots of reasons to be. You're so scared you'd rather go to sleep than face this danger of losing control again."

"If you remembered the things I do, you'd do the same," he says. 

"So what, you're going to stay in stasis until we find a magical cure? You'd rather be frozen then free? How long? Ten years? Twenty?"

He looks at me, then away. "Call me a coward, if you want," he says. "But I can't do this."

"You're not a coward," I say. "I know you're not. And I'm not going to force you. It's going to have to be your choice. If you'd rather stay here, hoping that T'Challa will be able to keep you safe, then that's what you'll do. But I wish you'd let us try." Try, and maybe fail. But here, facing Bucky and the fear in his eyes, I can't let him see my own hesitation. "We'll be safe, and we'll keep _you_ safe. It's our best shot. Bucky, _please._ "

He turns his head to look at me, and I meet his gaze. Pleading with him, wordlessly. And then I see something change in his face as his eyes soften and he bites his lips, undecided for a second, and then lets out a deep, resigned breath. "Yeah, okay," he says quietly. "All right."

 

**__**

_**Brittany, France, October 15th** _

I carefully push Bucky off of me. Sam comes to help and together we lift Bucky to lay him down on the ratty sofa we retrieved from a pile of stack of old and disused furniture in Natasha's barn. I sink down onto the floor right next to it, breathing hard through my sore throat.

"You okay?" Sam asks. 

I nod. 

"Do you think that you were – you know – maybe closer to a breakthrough this time?"

"No." I close my eyes and rest my head against the wall. For a second, I'd thought there was a slight chance – thought I'd seen something in his eyes shifting while I was trying to push him away from me with a strong grip on his shoulders. It was there, then gone; I might have imagined it, or maybe it was the late afternoon sun falling through the dusty window at a low angle, playing tricks on my vision.

Sam pats my shoulder. "I'll get you two some water," Sam says. "Be back in a minute."

"Don't bother," Natasha says. "We're done for today. We'll try again tomorrow."

A part of me wants to protest, another part welcomes the respite. My sore throat and my bruises agree with the latter. The Winter soldier is a match for me, even without his metal arm. I hear Sam leave the room. Natasha moves and comes to sit beside me, her leg brushing mine. "Don't say anything," I say.

"Wasn't going to."

We sit in silence, waiting for Bucky to wake up.

 

**__**

_**October 16th** _

"Желание. Ржавый. Семнадцать." _Longing. Rusted. Seventeen._ Natasha's voice is like a siren's song. Bucky's hands clench into fists as he struggles to stay calm. He's kneeling on the floor.

"Рассвет. Печь. Девять." _Daybreak. Furnace. Nine._ Bucky takes a deep breath, his jaw working. I want to scream at her to stop; instead I ready myself for a fight.

"Добросердечный. Возвращение на родину. Один." _Benign. Homecoming. One._ He closes his eyes. 

"Грузовой вагон." _Freight car._

Sequence completed, the Winter Soldier opens his eyes. "Я готов отвечать." _Ready to comply._

"Cолдат," Natasha says. "Cлушай мою команду. Твоя задача – захват противника, не бить на поражение." _Soldier, listen to my order. Your task – capture the enemy, no use of lethal force._

I am ready when the Winter Soldier lunges at me, and intercept his strike with my left arm. "Bucky," I say, trying to fend him off, trying to block rather than attack. "Bucky, stop. Bucky, it's me, Steve." We roll on the floor and while he tries to get a hold of me, subdue me as ordered, I try to catch his eyes and make him listen to me. "You don't have to do this. Buck, it's me. It's Steve." His brings his knee up between my legs with all his strength and pain shoots through me, crippling, blinding – I gasp and tears spring into my eyes. "Nat", I gasp out and hear her voice, distant, as the Winter Soldier lands a blow to my unprotected head. 

"Синий ." _Blue._

"Bucky," I croak out and darkness clouds my vision. 

"Киноварь. Служба. Тридцать." _Vermilion. Service. Thirty._

"Please."

"Завтра. " _Tomorrow._

 

**__**

_**October 18th** _

"Желание. Ржавый. Семнадцать."

 _Please,_ I think, not knowing what I'm praying for, or to whom. 

""Рассвет. Печь. Девять." Ten words, an eternity, and I reach for Bucky's hands. "Don't," he whispers. "Don't."

"Добросердечный. Возвращение на родину. Один. Грузовой вагон."

"Bucky. Buck. Don't you remember me? Come on, Buck, it's me. Do you remember what we said? 'To the end of the line.' It's still true, Bucky. I'm with you. I am. Bucky, come on, don't leave me hanging –" 

And I fail, again. 

 

**__**

_**October 20th** _

"I think we should face the facts, Steve. I'm not saying that we should give up yet, but … we have to at least consider the possibility." Sam's voice is calm and understanding. Gentle.

"I know," I say. 

Natasha, who has been facing the window, turns around. "There has to be something you did differently, back in D.C."

I don't understand how she can still sound this calm, this confident. "We've gone through this before," I say. "I tried. I tried everything."

"Did you really?" she asks. "Are you sure?"

"What do you want from me, Natasha? Don't you think if there was anything I could do, anything at all, I wouldn't do it?"

Her face hardens. "There must be _something_. I don't know what it is, but that doesn't mean that it isn't there, or, in this case, _missing_. You have to find it, Steve. I know you can."

"Nat, lay off a little, all right," Sam says. "I think we could all use a break. Let's take the rest of the day off –"

"And then? Tomorrow? What if it just doesn't work?" Clint's voice speaks of frustration. "And how do we know that we aren't actually _strengthening_ the conditioning by using the sequence on him, instead of weakening it?"

I rise to my feet, taking the ice pack off my black eye. I can no longer listen to this. 

"We can't stop now," I hear Wanda say as I leave the room. "We said we were going to help him. We have to."

"Yes, but how?" Clint says. "We're doing all we can."

~~~~~

From the living room, I can see Bucky sitting at the edge of the terrace, where three low steps lead from the granite flagstones onto the unmown lawn. His shoulders are hunched. He sits with his head bowed. His hand is in his lap and seems to be occupied with something. From my position, I only see a flash of something white. I frown, curious.

As I step outside and approach him slowly, he lifts his head. The thing in his lap turns out to be a cat, mostly white with patches of brown and black. As I come closer, it jumps down. He sighs and lets his hand drop. The cat moves from the terrace onto the ankle-high grass, then trots away, heading for the cluster of rain barrels at the eastern end of the building, where it disappears from sight. I think I've seen it before, perching on a roof or a fence post. 

I sit down next to him to stare at the trees in the distance. The leaves are mostly brown now, already starting to fall. The lawn is covered with them, little brown dots. It's raining a little and dusk is giving the park a gloomy, derelict appearance that eerily matches my own mood. 

"So," Bucky says. "When are you going to send me back?"

"I won't," I say. "Do you want to go back?" His shrug indicates an indifference I'm very sure he doesn't feel, and I sigh. "Buck. I'm so sorry."

"What for?" he says. "You haven't done anything."

"I'm doing something wrong – I have no idea what, or how to do it differently. Bucky, is there anything else that you remember from that day, anything that I haven't noticed, or …"

He turns his head and I turn mine. His eyes are dark, unreadable in the fading light. Circles under his eyes, a cut on his right cheek that I left there not two hours ago. It will be gone in the morning, but the exhaustion overshadowing his face won't. The past few days have been hard on him. He hates it. Hates it so much. So do I.

He swallows, then shakes his head. "I think – I think we might have to face the fact that it was just a fluke, Steve."

"Natasha doesn't think so."

He grimaces. "Well, I didn't either, but –"

"You didn't?" For some reason, it surprises me; maybe because I always secretly thought just that. A one-time victory, with the element of surprise on my side. A lucky shot. 

"If I had thought so, I wouldn't have come", he says simply.

"Buck, pal, what am I'm doing wrong? Have I missed something?" 

He doesn't answer, making me think he knows more than he lets on. Maybe I'm not desperate enough this time. Maybe it was my resignation, the sincerity behind it, that spoke to him on the helicarrier. I'm plenty desperate now, but probably not in the same way. "I'm sorry," I say again. 

"Yeah, me too." He takes a deep breath. "If it doesn't work out, you need to send me back. More than that, you have to – you have to install a secure lock on the stasis unit, and a kill switch, so that no one but you can open it."

"What?" I say, shocked. "Why – why are you saying that?"

"Steve," he says, gentle and patient, as if I'm a especially slow on the uptake. "You've given Natasha the code. I'm not going to be anyone's weapon, not even hers."

"She wouldn't –"

"She would," he says. "If she had to, she would, and you know it."

Jesus. He's right. Nat would do it, if she had no other choice, just like she would call out the Hulk, even knowing how much Banner hates it. "God," I say, feeling shaky, and cover my eyes with my hand. "God, no." 

"I don't blame you," he says. "It was my decision to come. I though maybe we'd have a chance, but it doesn't seem to be working." He pats my shoulder, a little awkwardly, because he has to twist to reach me with his right hand. "Steve." I look up at him. One corner of his mouth briefly lifts, a sad attempt at a smile. "Whatever it was that happened on that helicarrier – it's clear that it's not going to happen again. Hydra was very good at what they were doing, you have to give them that. It's not your fault. But when I go back into stasis – when I go back to Wakanda, you have to make sure that no one but you will be able to wake me. Not T'Challa. Not Natasha. _No one._ You have to promise me that. And don't think I won't know if you're lying."

"No, Bucky –"

"You owe me that much," he says. For a second, the determination in his eyes reminds me of the Winter Soldier, and I almost flinch. "It's that, or a bullet to my head. Don't believe I won't."

"Buck –" My voice is a hoarse whisper. 

"No, Steve. If you – " He breaks off. "If you respect me at all – if you _love_ me at all, if you were ever truly my friend, you'll do as I say."

And just like that, he takes the choice from me. Looking in his eyes, I cannot lie to him, cannot deny him. I close my eyes in defeat, nod, and when I open them again, he nods too, the relief so apparent on his face that it's like a physical blow. "A week," he says. "One more week and if we haven't made any progress by then, you take me back." 

He rises to his feel and leaves me alone on the steps, shaken and afraid.

 

**__**

_**October 24th** _

"… Возвращение на родину. Один. Грузовой вагон."

His face is a blur as tears of pain spill from my eyes and blood clogs my broken nose. I am sick to my stomach; I can't do this anymore. There are no words left in me, just a vast blankness, full of fear and desperation and pain. Three days left. Three days before … before – I can't lose him, I can't, not again. His fist comes down on me again and I barely manage to twist my head to the side, but he grabs my hair and bashes my head to the floor. "No," I say, "Bucky, please," but he doesn't hear me.

I twist away from under him, throwing one leg over his and using my leverage to turn us over to pin him under my weight. I manage to grab his arm and lose a chunk of my hair as he refuses to let go, but finally I force his arm down onto the mat. 

"No," I say, and blood runs from my nose, drips from my chin. "No." I fist my free hand in his hair and lower my head until our faces are only inches apart. "Listen to me," I say, low and urgent. "Will you just _listen_ to me, you jerk." 

His teeth bare in a furious snarl. Cornered, the Winter Soldier is like a rabid animal. 

Something in me snaps. I close the distance and cover his mouth with mine.

Distantly, a gasp: it might be Nat, might be Sam, I don't care. His lips are incongruously soft under mine. His mouth goes slack and I don't stop, I don't back off. I thrust my tongue into his mouth, filling him with a part of me, invading his mouth and stealing his breath. 

The thought that he could bite me, rip out my tongue with his teeth, never occurs to me. Through the copper tang of my own blood I taste him, the very essence of him, flavored with traces of the toothpaste he used this morning and the coffee he had for breakfast. Then he gasps, his arm comes around me and pulls me close, and he starts kissing me back. A door closing, footsteps fading, and I don't care, it barely registers. My eyes flutter shut as his tongue strokes against mine. I moan into his mouth and his breath hitches, but he doesn't stop, he still _doesn't stop_.

Finally I free my mouth from his. My lips feel puffy and swollen and I've never, ever, kissed anyone like this. "Bucky," I whisper, afraid to open my eyes, afraid to see. 

" _Jesus_ ," he whispers roughly, his mouth against my ear. "Hell of thing to spring on a guy, Rogers," and I sag with relief and can't stop holding on to him.

"Buck."

"Yeah," he says quietly and tugs at my hair to make me lift my head. "Steve, come on, look at me."

I open my eyes, and it's _Bucky_ who returns my gaze, fathomless stare replaced by blown pupils and a faint ring of blue in wide eyes that scan my face intently. Lips that are wet and glistening, kissed red. Smears of my blood on his cheek and chin. 

"You did it," he says. I nod, not trusting my voice, not daring to say anything. "You sure have a way to get a guy's attention. Didn't know you had it in you," he adds with a smile. 

I can no longer look him in the eyes. It occurs to me that I am still on top of him, my hands on his shoulders, and I awkwardly slide off and get to my feet. He sits up, blinking. I offer him a hand and he takes it, letting me pull him to his feet. 

"I am sorry," I say. 

His eyes narrow. "What for?"

I stare at him. "I didn't – you didn't – it wasn't –"

"You did what you were meant to do all along," he says. "You broke the conditioning."

"Yes, but –"

"I kissed you back, didn't I?" I open my mouth to object, and he scowls at me. "Don't even start." His frown deepens. He turns around and pulls a towel from a rack that somehow, miraculously, escaped the systematic destruction of the room over the course of the last week or two. He throws it at me without another glance, his back to me, and takes the other one to wipe his face and throat. He bends his head and the sweat-soaked strands part at the nape of his neck. Out of words, out of anything, I stare. The tense, muscular lines of his back, the white shirt clinging to him. My mouth is dry. I can't take my eyes off him.

He straightens and turns around. Catches me staring, freezes for a second and then slowly relaxes. He lifts his eyes with deliberate slowness and holds my gaze. I feel hot and cold at the same time and my stomach churns. Bucky. _God_. 

"Christ, Steve, stop looking at me like that," he says in a low voice. It's not disgust, at least I don't think so, and when his lips part and he wets them with his tongue, I know for sure. 

My body feels like a life wire, full of crackling energy. I don't know what will happen. It scares me, it scares _the shit_ out of me. It's Bucky in front of me, but I feel like I'm seeing a stranger. In the span of a a few seconds, the world has turned upside down. I wasn't prepared, I never saw this coming, and I can't – I just can't - 

"You have no idea what to do, have you?" he asks, a bit wryly, and I shake my head, terrified. He snorts and finally looks away. Then he lets out another long breath and turns his head back to face me. "All right. You know what, Steve? You go, and do your thing, and come back when you've figured your shit out."

~~~~~

I leave the gym in a daze and stumble across the yard. Taking deep breaths, hoping the cold October air will help me clear my head. No such luck. I turn toward the main building and enter through the postern door. I can hear male voices from the kitchen. Sam and someone else, Scott, maybe. Not Bucky. Quietly, I make my way along the hallway to the opposite end of the building, knocking at the door to Nat's study.

Natasha is sitting behind her desk. She looks up when I come in. It's been a while since I felt self-conscious in anyone's presence, but this isn't a day like any other. She swings around on her office chair, facing me with her eyebrows raised. "I'm impressed, Rogers. You don't to anything by halves, do you?"

"Did you know this was going to happen?" When she hesitates for a second, then shakes her head, I lower my gaze and admit, "Neither did I."

"Oh, _that much_ was obvious," she says. "You weren't exactly sending out seductive vibes. You can trust me to know the difference. Does is bother you? That you're –"

I don't know which word is on her tongue. Gay, maybe. Bisexual? In love with him? I shake my head; it's not that. "I didn't _know_ ," I say, not caring whether I come across as a bumbling idiot. I feel like one. "Natasha, how could I not know?" 

"Well, if it's any consolation, I didn't either," she says. "You completely blindsided me. Congratulations."

I narrow my eyes at that. "Are you mad at me?" I ask and she glares at me. "Because it almost sounds like you're mad." 

"Very few people still surprise me," she says. "I hate it when it happens; you know that." But she's smiling now, shaking her head in fond exasperation. "At least I wasn't the only one who got caught by surprise. No one knew. Well, I guess Tony might have had an inkling, somehow. I always thought he was behaving a bit like a jilted lover."

I decide that I really don't want to know what she means by that, so I don't ask. Instead I sit down heavily on the wooden chair in front of her desk. 

"So," Natasha says. "Turns out you _do_ have a way to get through to him. You weren't deliberately obtuse, just oblivious. It's called denial, Rogers."

I rub my eyes with my fingers. "I know that. It's just – the thought never occurred to me, and now I wonder what else I haven't seen, what else there is that I don't know about myself?"

"You're not seriously expecting an answer to that question, do you?"

"Fair enough," I says. "Just … I should have known."

"Don't beat yourself up over this," she says. "You can take Captain America out of the forties, but you can't take the forties out of Captain America. Don't dwell on the past, Steve, you have a future waiting for you. Don't throw it away because you think that it turned out differently than you thought it would."

A future. A future with him, she means, and all of a sudden my heart beats faster in fear, nervousness, and excitement. _Bucky._

"Steve," Natasha says, clearing her throat. "Entertaining as this is - are you sure you should be here, talking to me? Is that really where you want to be?"

"I needed … I needed to get away," I said, trying to sound calm and collected. In control. "He told me to go and figure it out."

"That's good advice, actually," she says. "He knows how to deal with your bullshit, I guess."

"Yeah, well," I says with a sigh. "He knows me really well."

"Looks like it," she says. Glances at me and shakes her head. "You're scared shitless, aren't you? Jesus, Rogers, grow a pair. There's a hot guy waiting for you down the hall. If it were me, and if I had nothing but time on my hands, I know what I'd do."

I bite my lips, but try as I might, I can't keep the blush under control. Heat spreads all over my face. "Natasha –"

"Shoo," she says. "Go away and let me pout. Make sweet love to Barnes, or something." I stare at her, face burning, and she lifts a cool eyebrow. "Yes? Do you need instructions? Should I draw you a picture? No? Good. Now go."

~~~~~

The shower washes away blood and sweat. I still feel shaky and lightheaded, and I can't stop thinking about it, remembering. Reliving. His lips under mine, his tongue in my mouth, his hand in my hair, his …

I can't think of that, or I'll go crazy. 

_I kissed you back, didn't I?_

The feel of his body under mine, his thigh between my legs. The strength of his arm around me, holding me close. I want … I want … 

God help me, I want him, I want him so much that it feels like it's swallowing me whole. _Bucky._ I want to climb inside of him and never leave, I want to get so deep into him that he can never get me out. I want him to hold me down and keep me there. And I even think – I think the wanting has been there for quite a while and I didn't permit myself to see. When I found him in Bucharest, I took great care not to get too close to him. Telling myself I didn't want to invade his personal space, didn't want to threaten him – it already felt like enough of an intrusion that I broke into his apartment. I was careful not to give in to my need to touch him, feel him alive and whole in my arms … I thought it was selfish, this urge to reach out to him, and maybe it was, but that isn't the whole truth. 

The truth is, I don't know what would have happened it I had given in. If I had pulled him close, bridged the gap and felt his breath on my cheek, inhaled the scent of his skin, sweaty and hot. If I'd felt his hands on me, strong and capable and _real_. 

Maybe the reason I let him go into croysleep with nothing more than a token protest wasn't to protect him from others, but from me. Or, and that's probably even closer to the truth, to protect myself from this.

I close my eyes, tilt my head back and let the water fall on my face. I press my hands against the tiles. It's not like the water can wash away my sins - my cowardliness, my selfishness. How long would I have left him there, frozen, under the pretext of keeping him safe, when it had in truth been all about me?

~~~~~

I knock on the door, and after a second, he opens.

"Can we talk?" I ask, voice as steady as I can manage, which is not very.

His eyes are bright and alive. "I don't want to talk, Steve."

"But I –"

"I don't want to talk," he repeats evenly.

Oh. _Oh._

"So go away, or come in. Your choice."

His eyes don't let go of me and I am suddenly dizzy with a rush of desire. _Your choice._ There is no choice, and he has to know it, has to know that every choice I have is always going to be for him. There's no way back, only forward. I take a deep breath, then another, and enter the room.

The door closes and he immediately pushes me against it. His hand in my hair, his mouth on mine, and I tremble and close my eyes when the kiss turns dirty and wet. I hear myself groan, helpless and desperate. He takes his mouth away. My protest turns into another helpless noise as his lips find the juncture of my neck and shoulder and he bites down hard, then sucks on the sensitve skin. "God, Bucky." 

"Yeah," he says, and takes my mouth again. I can feel him moving against me, hot and hard through layers of cotton. I've got one hand in his hair, the other one around his shoulders, pulling him close, possessively. I want him even closer, I want … everything. I didn't know you could want someone this much. 

"Have you ever," he says, between bites and kisses, and I moan and push against him, can't help responding to him, his hand, his voice, his lips. "Have you ever been with someone?"

"No," I gasp, hands sliding down to the small of his back, clutching the fabric of his undershirt. "Never." Kisses and a bit of awkward fumbling in the dark, and one of the girls – Elizabeth, they called her Lizzy – brought me off with her hand on me, once. We didn't even take off any clothes. There's been no one since. Peggy and I never had a chance, and there was no one else I wanted enough, no one I trusted enough. 

"Me neither," he whispers, and that throws me, completely, so much that I drop my hands and stare at him in disbelief. 

He laughs at me. "Oh, come on, I would have told you if I'd managed to get this far with a girl."

"I thought – during the war –" Local girls in a town in Italy. Prostitutes, maybe, though I knew that Bucky didn't really like the thought, he'd told me as much. 

He shakes his head. "Do you think you were the only guy who was turned off by the idea of paying for it?"

"Well, no, but –"

"I took them dancing, Steve. I kissed them. Some necking. I was good at that." He lifts his eyebrows, a little cocky. "Can't you tell?"

"You've really never been with a girl?"

He shakes his head. Closing my eyes, I let out a deep breath. "Do it with me," I say, and he makes a sound, somewhere between a groan and a growl, and kisses me again, kisses me until I drown in him.

~~~~~

I can't stop saying his name. "Bucky. Bucky. Buck –"

"Yeah," he whispers, moving with me, all around me. His eyes are, almost black, wide open, and focused on me, and I can't stop touching him, clinging to him. He licks the hollow of my throat and I throw my head back in a gasp, almost throwing him off me as I arch my back and push up against him. I want him inside of me but we never make it that far, not the first time, not the second, or the third, when I taste him, spread out for me on the bed, his hand clutching at the mattress helplessly as I take him into my mouth – doing this as best as I know how – and he finally comes with a groan that sounds like it's been torn from him under torture. 

"Steve," he whispers, reaching for me, and I come to him, incapable of staying away, even if I wanted to.

~~~~~

I didn't know. I didn't know what it feels like to be this close to someone else, skin on skin. I never knew that another's touch could make you fall apart and put you back together again, that you could lose yourself so entirely in another person.

Even on the brink of exhaustion, I still can't let him go. Can't stop pressing my head against him, sliding my hand over his his chest, his belly; touching his shoulder where scarred flesh fuses with metal. I finally fall asleep with my head on his shoulder, my hand resting over his heart. "Only you," I hear him whisper, and I press my lips to his collarbone and fall asleep.

 

**__**

_**October 25th** _

I wake up gradually. Hearing comes first; I register someone breathing at my side, a steady, soothing rhythm that I've known all my life and would recognize anywhere. There are faint noises coming from somewhere else, a door falling shut, familiar voices and the creaking of an unfamiliar floorboard. The sun falls through a window onto the bed, warming my back. I turn to lie on my stomach to bask a little more. The sheets are soft under my skin, but my right calf is trapped under something heavy and I shift and try to dislodge the weight.

Bucky grumbles, moves, turns. Presses his nose to my neck, inhaling. 

All of a sudden, I'm wide awake and my heart starts beating faster. "Bucky," I say. " _Bucky._ " 

His huffed-out laugh, so close to my ear, with his breath grazing my skin, makes me shudder. "Me. Did you expect anyone else?"

I turn my head to the side to look at him. His eyes are wide and blue in the morning light. His hair is a mess. And his smile. I know this smile, but I can't remember the last time I saw it, directed at me and only me. I'm probably grinning like an idiot myself, but he doesn't seem to mind.

"So," he says, and I'm a little in awe that such a little word can hold such a wealth of meaning. "You still want to _talk_?"

"We probably should," I say. As his eyes narrow, I hasten to concede, "But maybe not right now."

"Good answer," he says, rolls on top of me and kisses me until I barely know my name.

 

**__**

_**October 26th** _

By now, I am familiar with the words, knowing them by heart. I keep watching Bucky, see him struggle not to let the conditioning take over.

"... Возвращение на родину. Один." 

His muscles tense, his gaze starting to gain that utter focus that looks like blankness. 

"Грузовой вагон." 

The Winter Soldier looks at me, opening his mouth. Ready to comply. I surge forward and kiss him. "Stay," I whisper against his lips, my hands on his shoulder. I press my forehead against his. "Bucky, stay with me."

I hear him inhale. His hand comes up to cup the back of my head, holding me. Relief spreads through me until I feel almost dizzy with it. I wrap my arms around him and let him hold my weight, burying my face in his shoulder. His fingers card through my hair.

"Oh my God, that's … sickeningly sweet, actually." Sam says. "And here I thought we'd finally managed to get you a date with a nice chick. Turns out she never stood a chance." 

Bucky makes a weird noise in his throat.

"Well," Natasha says. "That wasn't bad. We still have to work on it. Ideally, the sequence should stop working altogether." 

I lift my head from Bucky's shoulder. He lets me go but his gaze lingers on me. 

"You can say it, Steve," Natasha says, cutting in, and I have to force my eyes away from him to look at her. 

"Say what?"

"Thank you, for a start," she says. "You say it nicely, maybe I'll cut down on the 'told you sos'."

Bucky snorts. I shake my head and laugh. "All right, Romanov. Not bad, I have to give you that."

"You're welcome," she says. "Next time, leave your hands off him. And no more kissing!"

 

**__**

_**October 28th** _

"Please," I whisper. "Bucky, please. Don't make me wait, don't –" Heat flares though me, an insistent, urgent need. I can barely keep myself from reaching for him. On my back, with my legs spread for him to kneel between them, to take me – "Bucky," I say thickly. He shushes me, then kisses me, quick and dirty, and pulls my hips toward him.

After the serum, whenever I thought about having a lover, I thought I'd have to be careful with her, hold her gently. Take care of her. It would be my responsibility to make her feel good, to make sure not to hurt her. I never imagined this. I bite my lips as his arm locks around my thigh, as he moves to closer, ready to push inside. I close my eyes, feeling hot all over. My cheeks are burning. 

"Steve," he says, "Steve, look at me –"

I open my eyes. We look each other for a long moment, then he lowers his gaze, focusing – oh, God, focusing on entering me. The missing arm is a bit of a hindrance and I put my hands on his shoulders to hold his weight as he leans over me. His cock presses against me and then in, and I'm short of breath, feeling every inch of him inside of me. I try to relax, but my body resists and fights the intrusion. Slowly, oh so slowly, he sinks deeper into me. My fingers dig into his shoulders and I lift my hips, urging him to move. He keeps pushing, and then, suddenly, he slides all the way in. I gasp with the shock of feeling him so completely, my body surrendering to him, giving in. His eyes fly back to my face, so dark and open that for a second, it feels like our roles are reversed, and he's the one letting me in. Bent over me, hair falling into his eyes, he holds himself very still, biting his lips, shaking. I lock my legs around his waist. "Come on," I whisper, and barely recognize the voice as my own. "Don't make me beg, damn you."

He stutters out a shaky laugh. I feel it, feel him, every tiny movement, every little shift of his weight. "Christ. It feels – you feel – _fuck_ , I didn't know – I had no idea –" His voice is low and rough, sending a shiver down my spine. His eyes are dark, beautiful, and a little wild.

"I know," I force out. "I know. Bucky –"

"Didn't know it would be like this," he says. "Never dreamed –" He leans forward, putting his hand on the mattress to support himself. "God, Steve, can I – let me, please –"

"Yes," I say. "Yes, do it," and he lets out an explosive breath, then starts to move. 

I don't know how to describe it, the way he feels inside of me. Taking me slowly at first, almost languidly, building a rhythm. It's like fighting with him, by his side, and soon enough we're moving in sync, as if we were made for this, for each other. His thrusts become just a little harder, a little faster, and my body ignites with an intense spark of pleasure. I groan, a deep, guttural sound. "Please," I whisper, out of my mind with need and desire. "Bucky, please –" 

"Shh," be says, then whispers something I don't quite catch. "I got you," he says, slightly louder. "God, Steve –" and the he circles his hips and drives into me again, and I cry out and close my hand around my dick. More, closer, _almost_ – I lift my hips and push up into his next stroke, and I'm _there_ , coming with an animal noise in thick, hot pulses over his belly and mine. Bucky's eyes widen. With a gasp, he stops, just for a second, and then thrusts deep into me and stills with a shocked, broken sound – eyes closing, face contorting in pleasure as he shakes and falls apart in my arms.

~~~~~

I don't want to move. For once, my body sinks into welcome lassitude, I feel like I could lie here forever. Buck, next to me, has rolled onto his stomach, and watches me, heavy-lidded. I turn my head to smile at him and he smiles back, a sleepy, satisfied smile that I have never seen before. Bedroom eyes, and a bedroom smile: private, secret.

I'm almost asleep as someone knocks on the door. 

"Steve?" Clint's voice. "Do you have a minute?" 

I cast a glance at Bucky, who opens one unamused eye and shrugs. He reaches for a blanket to pull it over himself. "'m not going anywhere," he murmurs. "Talk to him somewhere else. I gotta sleep. You wore me out."

I glare at him. "You're just lazy."

That earns me a snort. "Next time, you get to do all the work."

I sit up, sighing, running a hand through my hair. I am positively filthy and the thought of facing the others now isn't exactly pleasant. I could do with a little privacy for just a little longer.

"In a second," I say in a raised voice to let Clint know that I'm on my way. I pull on a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, then open the door to slip out into the hallway. Hoping, probably futilely, that I don't smell as strongly of sex as I fear. 

"Sorry to disturb you," Clint says. "How is Barnes?"

"He's fine." I think of Bucky's 'cat who got the cream' smile and almost blush. I'll have to overcome that urge, and soon, if I don't want Sam and Natasha tease me for all eternity.

"Good," Clint says. "I need to talk to you." He looks at my bare feet and shrugs. "Kitchen?"

After two cups of coffee, one bowl of stew, two apples and a banana my body seems to get the message that it is not meant to go to sleep and I can at least think again. I lean back in my chair, watching Clint. "When do you leave?"

"Early," he says. "Tomorrow morning. Natasha got her airport guy to books us on a flight to New York – unofficially, of course."

"Us – you mean you and Scott?"

He nods. "You don't need us here. Things are going well with Barnes. You still have Wanda and Sam here, but I need to get back."

I weigh my words, not wanting to sound patronizing. Clint has been a spy for far longer than any of us. If someone can avoid capture, it's him. "Are you sure you want to take the risk?"

"I have a reason to take it," he says. 

"If you need any kind of help – any time –" 

"I know," he says. "You too. It was fun, Cap. You take care of your boy, now that you have him back."

"I intend to," I say, and then, predictably, I blush at Clint's grin, just as Wanda and Sam enter the kitchen. Raindrops on their jackets, mud on their boots. It's almost November.

Sam looks me up and down pointedly. "So you're still alive. Didn't think we'd get to see you today, or Barnes, for that matter. Where is he, by the way?"

"Asleep," I say, and pretend not to see them exchange meaningful glances. Scott whistles softly

Sam shakes his head, warm laughter in his eyes. "Go easy on him, Steve," he says. "You just got him back, try not to break him."

It's so close to what Clint said that it startles a laugh out of me. "I'll do my best."

~~~~~

Bucky is asleep when I return. He wakes as I approach the bed, pull of my clothes, and slide under the blanket. I curl around him, slinging an arm around his waist. Press my head to his left shoulder, just above the joint of flesh and metal.

"Mhm. You smell of coffee," he mutters and turns his head to kiss me. "Nice."

"Go back to sleep," I say.

"What did Barton want?"

"He's leaving."

"Huh." 

Bucky doesn't say anything else, and I settle in for sleep. After a while, he mutters something, so softly I miss the words almost entirely. "What?" 

"I just – are you bothered by it?"

"Bothered by what?"

"This. Us. Them, knowing."

"No," I say without thinking. "I just hate that it took me so long to understand. You knew, didn't you?"

There is a long silence, and then he rolls over to his back. "I didn't."

"But you –"

"I knew how _I_ felt. I always knew that. Even before."

My heart misses a beat. "Before? I had no idea."

That gets a small smile out of him. "You weren't supposed to."

"How long, Buck?" I whisper. 

He shrugs. "Years and years. Before the war, even. It doesn't matter; things were fine the way they were. You know how it was back then, it was safer to keep a lid on it. And the thing is, I knew it wasn't the same for you. You didn't feel it, not the way I did, not then." A long pause. Inhale, exhale. An almost-sigh. "That day on the helicarrier … you let me see you. You opened up to me. And I think you felt it too, but then you locked it all away again and I couldn't find you anymore."

I squeeze my eyes shut. "I am sorry," I say. "For being such a coward." 

"Not a coward," he says, and lifts his hand to pet my hair. "Just a bit slow on the uptake." 

"I love you," I say, helpless against the surge of feelings, love, and guilt, and longing.

"Yeah," he says. "I know." His fingers trace my cheek, my eyebrows, my nose. He doesn't say the words back, he doesn't have to: he's writing them onto my skin with every gentle, careful touch.

 

**__**

_**October 30th** _

I close my eyes, let Natasha's voice wash over me, absently translating them in my mind. _Longing. Rusted. Seventeen. Daybreak. Furnace. Nine. Benign. Homecoming. One. Freight car._ My hearing is focused on the sound of his breath, deep and regular across the room. No longer scared.

"Cолдат," Natasha begins.

Bucky's voice cuts her off. "You know, Romanov, this is really starting to get old."

I open my eyes to stare at him. He smiles at me. We both look at Natasha, who looks back, coolly amused. "Getting cocky, aren't we?"

"Just bored," he says. 

"Well," she says. "Took you long enough." She gives him a rare smile, full of warmth and mischief. In an instant, Bucky is on his feet, lifting her up. A second of involuntary tension – instinct, honed over years – and she relaxes and lets him spin her around. When he sets her down gently, she's laughing.

~~~~~

"So," Bucky asks me that night after an impromptu celebration. We're lying on the bed, again, close but not touching. "What's going to happen now?"

"You mean, after all those tests Natasha still wants to do with you?"

"Don't remind me. But, yes, after that, what do we do?"

"In a few months, we should take T'Challa up on his offer. Who knows, maybe we'll go on a roadtrip to Wakanda?" Bucky's pointed glance lets me know what he thinks of that idea. I ignore it. "Until then, I think, we could all use a holiday." It's not going to be more than a temporary reprieve, I know that. Even if the intelligence services don't find us, there will be other battles to come. 

Bucky seems to think along the same lines. "You know the peace isn't going to last, do you? Someone's going to do something and we'll find us at the front line again, whether we want to or not."

"I know," I say. "And we'll be ready when it happens. But for now, there are plenty of things I would rather do than fight."

He gives me one of his slow, sweet smiles. "Sounds pretty good, Rogers. You know what? Count me in."

 

****

The End

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think! You can also find me on [tumblr](http://uniwolfwerecorn.tumblr.com).


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